MP welcomes promise of mobile investment

Three major mobile companies are announcing investments in boosting mobile coverage across North Yorkshire.

Communications company Everything Everywhere has told Julian Smith, Member of Parliament, for Skipton and Ripon that £4.3m will be spent on boosting mobile coverage in the constituency with £30m spent across North Yorkshire.

The firm became the first to launch 4G coverage in the UK this year with the roll-out set to come to North Yorkshire from next year.

The money will be spent on improving broadcast masts in the area to boost mobile telephone coverage and provide 4G access. 50 masts across the Skipton and Ripon constituency will be upgradedMeanwhile, Vodafone and O2 are joining forces and pledging to close the digital divide between rural and urban areas for voice and 3G mobile internet.

They say that the partnership will allow nearly a five time improvement in the number of people here who can get a good quality 3G mobile internet signal indoors on their networks by 2013/14.

Julian Smith said:

This news is a welcome boost for those who struggle to get mobile connectivity in my constituency and also those who can’t get good quality broadband connections.

Too many people currently struggle to get any mobile signal in parts of rural North Yorkshire and I hope this investment from these three major mobile companies start to change that.

4G is one important solution in our attempts to get as many properties as possible in North Yorkshire connected to superfast broadband and I look forward to seeing the roll-out from Everything Everywhere in the coming years.

I was one of a number of MPs lobbying the Government to ensure rural areas benefitted from the 4G roll-out. We secured an increase in the coverage commitment from 95pc to 98pc of the country and this will have major benefits for sparsely populated areas like much of North Yorkshire.